


keep me sane

by stag_von_simp



Category: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Married Couple, Nightmares, Post-Canon, but only briefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 08:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24348079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stag_von_simp/pseuds/stag_von_simp
Summary: Lyon has a nightmare, and Ephraim has a remedy.
Relationships: Ephraim/Lyon (Fire Emblem)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 36





	keep me sane

The fact that it pans out in strikes of lightning should be enough to notify Lyon that this is, indeed, a dream. The fact that he is towering over Ephraim, who’s had quite a few inches on him their entire lives, should also slam the sirens in his head. But, as he wades through the haze in his own mind, kicks through the fog as he gropes for clarity, he’s undeniably sucked in; he’s not aware that there’s any world where the dream is not happening, or any world where it’s a dream, or any world where Lyon still has a prayer of being a decent person ever again. **  
**

Oddly enough, Lyon’s knuckles are bleached by his grip on Ephraim’s lance, in the dream. They glint by the light of the moon, his flexed fingers. Ephraim, from the start, is sprawled beneath him. The tip of the lance jabs Ephraim’s chest, but it doesn’t plunge through. _Yet_.

Even in the dream, Lyon knows the attack is coming. He knows that he will be the perpetrator. _Stop stop stop_ whines his own voice in his head, clouded black by the magic of the Demon King. In this instant, he _is_ the Demon King. Lyon is shriveled somewhere inside, _somewhere_ , but Fomortiis doesn’t bother to search for him.

Not a word is exchanged the entire time; the lack of acid-laced comments flooding from Ephraim makes the unreality of what’s happening so obvious. But Lyon can’t squeeze through the cracks in this dimension back to the one he knows. He barely tries.

He just growls, mumbles something less than any language, and drives the lance through Ephraim’s chest. Ephraim finally jolts to action, if only for a moment; the blankness of his face distorts into blurry terror, and he howls for his life, howls for Eirika. His desperation ripples across the land itself, awakening flames around the two of them, goading those flames to tremble and dance. The fires, deep purple like deceit, chew the landscape inside out.

Lyon’s body whips around - it’s not _Lyon_ whipping around, just his skin and bones and muscles twisting accordingly, but he didn’t direct them to act - and he breathes in the tragedy like it’s a pleasing aroma. Some part of him disgusts himself. Most of him celebrates.

He can hear Ephraim sobbing (gagging against blood, too, _so unlike Ephraim_ ) behind him. As Lyon springs awake, those sobs resound through his head, and he hates himself. Every voice in his head is hushed by his heartbeat. Lyon hurls himself into a sitting position, gasping, eyes wide as he searches for Ephraim, who is there, in the bed, sleeping with his jaw slumped open in a way that Lyon would smile about if he could hook some air into his lungs, but at the same time, Ephraim’s _not_ there, and his chest is fountaining with blood, and he’s screaming and crying and–

“Ephraim,” Lyon grits out, yanking Ephraim’s arm in a desperate attempt to jar him from his sleep. Ephraim’s eyes peep open far too slowly. 

He grumbles something about being tired and flops over, face now crushed into the pillow, and Lyon _has_ to see that face, see Ephraim’s eyes aglow, revel at that little bead of drool caked on the side of his mouth. He wrenches Ephraim up by the shoulder, just to stare.

“Ephraim,” Lyon says again, louder. Ephraim’s eyes finally shoot open; he’s finally, _finally_ awake, and Lyon knows that should ease the ache of his chest, but it doesn’t.

“Is something wrong?” Ephraim asks, already scrambling to plant his feet on the floor. “What’s the matter? What’s going on?”

And Lyon’s chest is so tight, braced so completely in the hands of his panic, that suddenly, he’s _furious_. Those fires from his dreams stir in his chest.

“You should have stopped me,” Lyon says, much too loudly. Ephraim stops trying to wrestle himself to his feet. He plops onto the bed, now back to sitting. “Why didn’t you say anything, you idiot?” Lyon sounds nearly ragged.

Ephraim’s brow crumples. “Huh?”

If Lyon could somehow seal himself shut, he would, but alas; once he starts launching himself at Ephraim, he can’t stop. 

He ends up barely drumming his fist against Ephraim’s chest, _one two three_ , trying to be forceful, trying to inflict punishment. Trying to probe for the wound. “You just lay there, Ephraim. You stopped me the first time, you swore you wouldn’t let it happen again, but you let it happen and you did nothing and _you should have fought_. You always fight–”

“Oh,” Ephraim says, just as he wraps his hand around Lyon’s wrist. Lyon’s hand goes limp. “I get it, you had a nightmare. Well, that at least explains the sweat.” Ephraim chuckles, trailing the thumb of his hand that isn’t clasping Lyon’s down his husband’s cheek. “Wait, why are you dreaming about the Demon King?”

Lyon twists his wrist free, then huddles away from Ephraim, face aflame. “I don’t know. I…I shouldn’t have woken you. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Please. And, um…look at me.” Lyon, lip pinned by his teeth, resists. “Come on. _Lyon_. Look at me.” 

It’s the way Ephraim’s tongue sews Lyon’s name into something worth saying - that’s what convinces Lyon to face him, despite the embarrassment still boiling in his cheeks.

“Lyon. I swear on my life that I would never, ever let you go so far again as you did… _that time_. I mean, it was more or less my fault anyway, right?”

“How could it possibly be your fault? That doesn’t…” Lyon’s voice dwindles before he can finish, and now it’s Ephraim who’s bowing his head, who refuses to meet the eyes of the man he married.

“But wasn’t it? I was the one making you feel like you had to go do something crazy just to measure up, wasn’t I? I was the one–”

“Ephraim. Look at me.”

He’s hesitant, but he looks.

“It had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with the fact that I was a fool. On second thought, I’m likely still a fool now,” Lyon muses. “And…trust me, I know it was my fault, and I know the only one standing between myself and pulling such a stunt like that again is me. But having you definitely helps, Ephraim. Don’t blame yourself. You saved me. You…um, you save me every day all over again, I think.”

A smile flutters at the corners of Ephraim’s mouth. Perhaps it’s the slant of the moonlight through the windows that draws his features anew, blurs their edges, turns Ephraim into someone soft and misty-eyed, the sharp jut of his jaw soothed, all the scars of war washed away. Or perhaps this Ephraim was shivering beneath the surface all along.

“Well, what can I possibly say to that without sounding pathetic in comparison to you?” Ephraim splutters, and an impossible grin slashes onto Lyon’s face. “Gods, Lyon. Only you can wax poetry like that at this hour. You and maybe Eirika. _Maybe_. I guess all that’s left to say is that I love you.”

“And that’s the perfect thing to say,” Lyon assures him. The dream - which had seemed so tragically real only ten minutes ago - loiters now at only the fringes of his mind, blotting into the distance as if it never mattered at all. And maybe it didn’t; maybe Lyon should stop worrying about things that will never happen. Not when there’s a man sitting across from him with tears woven through his lashes, strung there by love alone. Not when there’s Ephraim to keep him safe; not when there’s Ephraim to keep him _sane_.

“Okay, great, so…I think we should, uh, call it a night, before you get a chance to embarrass me with your eloquence again, you rascal,” Ephraim says, diving back towards his pillow. He yawns, smacks his lips in a way that would annoy Lyon if it weren’t making his utterly melted heart dribble into his stomach, and wrangles Lyon down beside him.

Lyon floats back into sleep with Ephraim’s arm draped around his waist, as if to buckle him into the real world - the _best_ world, the world where he belongs, and they belong together. And no, he doesn’t have so much as a shadow of darkness in his dreams, thanks to Ephraim.


End file.
